Missions

Yesterday was a historic day for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, and I was absolutely delighted to have had the privilege of being part of that history as an IMB Trustee. At about 11:00 yesterday morning, I wrote the single word “Yes” on a small, blank piece of paper in answer to the question, “Should David Platt be the next President of the IMB?” The day before that, I had been deeply moved to thankfulness when I found out the Search Committee was presenting David as their chosen candidate. The Committee revealed the identity of their candidate by playing an IMB video done using David’s passionate voice making a powerful appeal to Christians to risk everything for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth. I immediately recognized two things: the identity of the speaker, and the same moving of the Spirit I feel inside my heart every time I hear David pour out passionate conviction on the urgent need for sacrifice in the cause of missions. I immediately thanked God for his providential moving in bringing such a man to such an agency for such a time as this.

David Platt

Why do I say that? There are many reasons I could give. I could speak of David’s remarkable love for God’s Word, and his skill at weaving together some of the deepest themes in the Bible in ways that are both doctrinally sound and unifying. Given that the IMB is the united effort of a wide array of Baptist congregations, such a unifying theological vision is essential. Or I could speak of David’s fruitful years of ministry at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, where he led that local church in a journey of increasingly sacrificial service to Christ for eight years. Given that the IMB President will need to make an effective appeal to pastors to lead their congregations in similar journeys, such a track record gives him credibility. Or I could speak of David’s book, Radical, which has made a profound impact on the hearts of countless people, calling them away from the emptiness of a life lived for materialism to the fullness of a life lived for Christ’s Kingdom. Given that only radical obedience to Christ will be able to meet the challenges of taking the gospel to the remaining 6,500 unreached people groups on earth, such a message is vital. There are many other aspects of David’s life and gifting I could address.

What moves me to write is how the Holy Spirit moves in me whenever I hear him speak. Truth on fire! That’s good preaching, preaching with unction. It flows from the white-hot convictions of a heart shaped by God’s Word and ignited by God’s Spirit. Jonathan Edwards, in an ordination sermon he preached entitled “The True Excellency of a Gospel Minister” said that a faithful preacher must combine light and heat—truth and passion. The truth must flow from sound exegesis of Scripture. The heat must radiate from a heart that loves God and people by the power of the Spirit. Both are essential. Both are present whenever David Platt speaks. I feel my heart ignited with zeal when I listen to David… I want to sacrifice, to live with passion, to speak with conviction, to risk more and more for the spread of the gospel. David is one of the most effective tools I’ve ever heard for driving out the lukewarmness from the hearts of his hearers.

This fire is essential to the future of the IMB. Young people respond to this kind of a message. They want to live and if need be, die, for something of eternal consequence. David Platt ignites their hearts for the eternal glory of God in the advancing Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Without thousands of young people and millions of dollars flowing toward the ends of the earth, not only the IMB but all mission agencies will die. David’s message resonates with young Christians.

I picture the IMB like a sawmill by the side of a river which is powered by the flow of the water turning a waterwheel. The wheel turns in proportion to the amount of water that flows by the mill. The more water, the more lumber can be cut. At present, the stream flowing by the IMB is dwindling year by year. But further upstream, there are huge blocks of ice with all the resources needed to cut astonishing amounts of lumber. They wait for the thawing heat of the sun… they wait a fiery heat, a passionate breath from the Spirit of God. When the ice melts, the waters will flow. The ice represents locked-up resources of time, energy, money, spiritual gifts, people. David’s biblically accurate passion is like a blowtorch in the hands of the Lord, unleashing resources to flow for the eternal glory of God and the joy of presently lost people. To God be the glory for this generous gift, not only to the IMB, but to the people who will spend eternity worshipping Christ because a missionary was brought to a fork in the road of his life and made the infinitely wise decision to risk it all for Jesus.

The full video from that plenary session is embedded below, or you can watch it here.

Please share this with your friends. Andy’s talk has also been translated into Mandarin, Farsi, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. Just click the links if you would like to listen to it in one of those languages.

David Hesselgrave has been one of the most prominent and influential figures in evangelical missiology over the past few decades. His academic prowess and extensive writing on most aspects of the missionary endeavor have endeared him to the Great Commission community. His magnum opus, Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally, has become a staple textbook in classrooms and mission courses all throughout the global west. In this book (pp 446–452), Hesselgrave describes the several stages he believes generally occur in authentic Christian conversions. Here is a summary of the process as he describes it:

Discovery:“There is a person called Christ whom the true God is said to have sent into the world to be the Savior and Lord of human beings.”

Deliberation:“Should I forsake my old ways and follow Christ?”

Determination:“I will repent and believe in Christ.”

Dissonance:“Forces are trying to draw me back to the old ways. Should I resist them and continue to follow Christ?”

Discipline:“I will identify with the people of Christ in His church. I will live in submission to His lordship and church discipline.”

Even though Hesselgrave was only using these phases to delineate different aspects of the conversion process, he was very wise to begin the last phase as identifying with the people of Christ in his church. If our goal is to bring those we are sharing with to become mature disciples of Christ, then we should not set our goal at merely a profession of faith. We should set our goal for those we are sharing with to as: we want to see them “liv[ing] in submission to [Jesus’] lordship” and “identify[ing] with the people of Christ in his church.”

Using a Chinese idiom that means “As you begin, so you go,” a pastor in China recently contrasted the differences between those who come to faith in the local church and those who come to faith through foreign missionaries. He noted that even though foreign missionaries boast much higher numbers of professions of faith, they have a much lower percentage of those who enter the church and become spiritually mature. His meaning of using the idiom was that if you make the “decision” the focal point of our witnessing efforts, then it’s very difficult to get that person to grow beyond that. However, if our witnessing efforts should be focused on spiritual maturity, then our evangelism methods should aim for a trajectory that goes beyond merely a profession of faith.

Here is how he contrasted the difference:

Foreign Missionary

Local Church

Witnessing efforts focused on presentation

Witnessing efforts focused on relationship

Witnessing efforts focused on a decision

Witnessing efforts focused on a process

Witnessing efforts focused on the individual

Witnessing efforts focused on the family

The missionary did the evangelism

The local church did the evangelism

In this pastor’s manner of thinking, even if the missionary did not intend to make the “decision” the focal point of the evangelism process, his actions communicate otherwise. With much fervor he would share the gospel message and always make sure to ask, “Do you believe this?” This seemed to be rather effective because after a few times meeting together an individual would either make a decision (yes or no), or he would stop meeting with the missionary. If the decision was “yes,” they would quickly begin a discipleship curriculum. If the answer was “no,” then the missionary would shift their concentrated efforts to a different individual.

Meanwhile, on any given night, the local brothers and sisters would share meals together. They enjoy hosting one another, and always try to encourage one another to bring friends. While fellowshipping together, they would get to know their guests and ask them many questions about their family and life, inviting their whole family to join in on their times of study and fellowship. The Scriptures were always the centerpiece of their gatherings and they would naturally try to draw the non-Christians into discussion, inviting them to come to the next gathering to discuss more.

For our American culture, the way the Chinese pastor described the evangelistic method of the missionary often seems most natural to us. It is a streamlined process that is measurable and identifiable. The method of the Chinese church that I just described above, however, is different and takes a great deal of time and investment—and it’s difficult to identify whether the non-believing family is more interested in the meals and friendship than they are the gospel. However, what is communicated non-verbally in the two methods is the importance of the community of believers. In the missionary’s method, he might share about the local church in the gospel message, but that seems to be an afterthought to getting the individual to make a decision. But, in the other example, the decision to follow Jesus is not only told with words, it is also lived out among the members of the local church.

Are we communicating the significance of the local church in our evangelistic methods? Are we displaying the joy of Christian fellowship in how/when/where we gather? If not, is it any wonder why it is difficult for the church to seem relevant to those in the communities around us?

In situations where we send those from among us to live overseas and plant churches, the way that the entire church family is involved in the process can also communicate the church as missionary model to the locals in that setting. They will see the sacrifice, effort, care, and love that one church can have for another as the parent church is willing to provide for the needs of the daughter church. This happens as our overseas representatives share their needs with us, and we rally to go, support, and provide for those needs. Our mere presence can communicate far more than our unintelligible language sometimes.

May we always be willing to cross whatever geographic or cultural barrier that exists to help put those churches we are planting on a path to maturity. May we live like the Chinese pastor was challenging us to live, even in places where no local church yet exists. Inviting families into our homes and having them join in our Christian community (even if it is only our family), they will see the joy that is shared as God’s people gather together. And, may all our evangelism and church planting efforts be done with the goal of bringing the nations to hearing about Jesus for the first time and to “identifying with the people of Christ in His church … living in submission to His lordship and church discipline.”

After assuming ownership of all land, the government gathered the country’s inhabitants into communes. In each commune, every individual and family had to give up the rights to their own possessions. Everything became owned by the “collective whole.” While Mao was able to get the majority of the population organized into such communes, there were pockets where this was not as successful. Resistance was most strongly maintained among the tribal peoples who refused to give up the lands they had been cultivating for centuries. They were resolved to stand firm, in part, because of the history and heritage they shared on that sod. Where such strongholds remained, the government eventually made concessions with those peoples by allowing them to maintain limited autonomy over their native territories.

While the victory of resistance is still shared among many of China’s minorities, the stories and memories of all that happened in that dark period of their history are still alive and active. A couple of years ago, I was in a meeting where a local pastor was addressing a small church. He was speaking to them about how to share the resurrection of Jesus Christ with their village. He reminded them of the aforementioned battles their grandparents fought to keep their lands, climaxing with a battle cry they were all familiar with, “We were there when the unspoken boundaries were drawn!” “We were there,” he paused, “We were there when Jesus died. We were there when he was placed in the tomb. We were there when he rose from the dead!” “We were there,” he said, “that is how we should share about the resurrection.”

I will never forget the way that pastor’s words collided with the Spirit within me. The ethnic people group these brothers and sisters were from are the original inhabitants of their land. They believe their ancestors settled there several thousand years prior. Yet, they still claim, “We were there …” That same strong identity shared with their physical ancestors is now shared among the descendants of the people of God. My spiritual heritage became more near and concrete to me that day. I became more finely tuned to what Peter was saying in 1 Peter 2:9–10:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.”

Here, Peter was talking about a chosen people from a remnant of all peoples throughout all generations, a royal priesthood made up of all tribes spanning all ages, a holy nation crossing all global geographic and ethnic barriers. As far chronologically removed as we may be from the events recorded in the history of the early church, as the people of God, we were there.

Aside from learning a great and new practical perspective for sharing the gospel, I’ve drawn a couple of practical implications from this:

First, the more we understand our Christian heritage, the more we can identify with those who went before us—and with the doctrinal battles they fought. This should embolden us not to concede our doctrinal foundations, but rather to persevere in resisting theological compromise. So, we should have an action plan—to learn our history. We should learn our biblical, church, denominational, and local church histories:

Biblical History: This is the story of what it means to be the people of God. “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and exact places where they should live” (Acts 17:26). “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (Ps 139:16).

Church History: Every generation comes up with new ways to express the same ancient theological errors. The firm doctrinal foundations laid by our spiritual predecessors serve as theological moorings to help keep us from drifting into dangerous theological waters.

Denominational History: We should know the tenets on which our denomination was founded. With healthy local bodies of regenerate believers joining together, our churches serving as missionaries can confidently take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth.

Local Church History: God has hardwired the world in such a way that each local body should serve as a luminary in our immediate community and beyond. We should seek to know our beginnings and set our course so that each successive generation can see how we are part of God’s plan in bringing the nations to dwell with and enjoy him forever.

Second, an understanding of our history should make us increasingly aware of the need to dispatch larger regiments of soldiers as the Kingdom marches on. So here, also, we need a plan of action: i.e., to train up, and then disperse, our local fellowship of believers:

Evangelism and Basic Discipleship: Outside of normal times of corporate worship, all members should have access to good theological training provided by the local church.

Discipleship for Life: God’s main means for the sanctification of every believer is for us to grow up into maturity through the local church.

Elder Training: A local church should always be striving to train up men as a means of both providing a succession plan for existing leaders, and for the development of new leaders.

Church Planting and Missions: As the local church equips and trains disciples in the previous three areas, it then disperses them into new areas for the advancement of the kingdom. Once a new church is planted, it should implement the same type of training and dispersing paradigm so that all church plants strive to produce church-planting churches.

Thanks for reading so far. We’ll continue this series, Lord willing, next week.

While there are many things to celebrate in the current state of the modern missionary movement, there is also some things that should cause concern. For example, nearly every modern definition of a missionary focuses on the task of sending an individual across geographic and/or cultural boundaries to live out the Great Commission among a population segment that has little to no access to the gospel message. Unfortunately, it seems to me that many fail to see the inherent danger with this definition.

Consider the following scenario with me:

The Wright family goes to serve in a country that’s officially closed to the gospel. They go to work with a people group that does not have a single known believer. They win some people to faith and gather them together. After a while the group begins to mature and forms into a church. Even though they are young, they want to do what the Bible says in all matters of faith. Not wanting to create dependency from the church on outsiders, the Wright’s provide increasingly less support for the new church, and instead continue the same church planting model in new areas.

On the surface, this seems like a commendable plan. The Wright family has done a great job in evangelism and getting this church formed. However, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. Is this church equipped to be self-sustaining and self-theologizing? Is this church equipped to deal with difficult persecution? Is it equipped to develop new Christian traditions that completely replace previous pagan ones? Is it equipped to help women who are abused physically, emotionally, or sexually? Is the church able to correctly discern truth from the errors of false doctrine? And most importantly, even if the Wright family continues to help this young fellowship, are the Wrights alone equipped to provide all that is needed to help this church mature? Remember, in this scenario, this is the first church planted among that population segment. There are no other neighboring churches they can go and talk with to learn how to deal with certain trials that might arise.

Every year there are hundreds of churches that are reportedly planted on the mission field that begin like one I described above; however, an alarmingly significant percentage of these churches will no longer be in existence two years later.

If we want to plant churches that are going to stand the test of time—churches that will also be able to plant other church-planting churches—then we need to stop looking at individuals as missionaries and begin to look to the local church as the missionary. While there might be individuals that go out from us for certain portions of the church planting efforts, the work of church planting is better understood to be the work of the local church.

Three important implications for the church as missionary paradigm:

1) From Hearing to Maturity: While individuals sent out from the local church might be well equipped to initiate the church planting process, precious few are able to give a new church (in a cross-cultural context nonetheless) everything they need to be healthy and self-sustaining. Imagine the training needed for a context in which no previous believers in the entire population segment existed! All members will be brand new believers and must grow into their positions of church leadership and service. The parent church can nurture the daughter church in this process in ways that individuals cannot.

2) The “Homogeneous Unit” Principle: This principle focuses on the fact that demographically similar people tend to flock together. This can lead to the ostracizing and neglect of certain segments of the target population and does not well portray the differences in the body of Christ that is characterized all throughout the Scriptures. If individual missionaries are very intentional, they will be able to share the gospel with all types of people. However, if they want to follow Jesus’ model of discipleship, they will only be able to spend consistent one-on-one/life-on-life training with a fraction of those they see come to faith. This normally ends up being those who are in the same gender and phase of life as the missionary. Therefore, regardless of the cultural differences, the church plant tends to look very much like the missionary. If the missionary is not an individual, but a church body, the Homogeneous Unit problem can be replaced with a healthy church planting model.

3) The Church/Parachurch Relationship: The prefix ‘para’ can have several similar, but different, definitions. In regard to para-church the suffix takes on the meaning ‘distinct from, yet providing assistance to’ the church. Therefore, it is important to remember that such an entity is not only distinct from a church, but it exists to assist the church. With the church seeking consultation and training from parachurch organizations for specific elements of the missionary task, the church can maintain its position as missionary while receiving much needed help from others who are more experienced or equipped in certain areas.

While there are numerous tracking systems for the number of churches being planted globally each year, there does not seem to be much effort given to the tracking of the growth of such churches. Not too long ago, I was part of a group that was studying the elements behind three different movements where churches were rapidly planting new churches. While there was certainly much to celebrate, I was deeply grieved to discover that more than eighty churches reported in these movements were no longer in existence before their second birthday. If we are sowing our seeds a mile wide but only an inch deep, is there any wonder that persecution and the worries of this world are choking the life out of these young fellowships(cf. Matt 13:1–23)? It’s similar to this old, oft-quoted African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”

In following posts, we will look at each of the aforementioned implications for local church mission work, and consider how a US-based local church can practically apply them by serving as a missionary in a global context.

We’ll take a brief break this week from our current series on “Christ’s View of the Scripture,” in order to hear from one of FBC Durham’s missionaries serving overseas. These posts will consider missional applications for the local church. It looks like the first post will go up tomorrow, so we hope you’ll come back and check it out.

FBC exists to glorify God by welcoming people into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, by building them up to spiritual maturity and equipping them to serve Christ, and by sending them out into a world that needs Christ desperately. The glory of God is our primary focus, but especially our delight in that glory. So we enjoy worshiping God who is sufficient for all these things, and whose glory will dazzle us, entice us, intrigue us, occupy us and deeply satisfy us forever in the New Heaven and New Earth.